Kham then and now. A photoblog showing how eastern Tibet looked in the 1920s and how the same places and people look now. Based on the explorations of botanist Joseph Rock.

Friday, September 13, 2013

Random photo: hiking in the snow near Yubeng, 2002

After my failed attempt to cross the Doker-La in April 2002, we visited the Tibetan mountain hamlet of lower Yubeng, where we spent three
frustrating days waiting in a wooden shack for the weather to clear. It didn’t.
It rained incessantly and fog blocked out any views of the surrounding
mountains. We had nothing to do except sit round a fire that gave off little
heat and hope tomorrow would bring better weather.

When the third morning dawned grey and wet, we tried tobeat the encroaching cabin fever by hiking
through the deep snow to see a sacred waterfall and a ‘magic lake’. It proved
to be a miserable hard slog with slushy boots and we saw very little. Yubeng
didn’t feel like Shangri La.

Lesson learnt: don't visit this region in early spring - wait until May!

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About this blog

Dr Joseph Rock was an Austrian-American botanist who explored the Tibetan borderlands of Sichuan and Yunnan in the 1920s and 30s. This is about my travels to revisit the places he described in the National Geographic magazine. Any questions? contact me at beijingweek AT gmail